[news.eclipse.platform.swt] Re: SWT Browser Questions on Gentoo Linux

[elvanor2007@xxxxxxxxx (Jean-Noel)]

Hi Grant,

Much thanks for your very helpful reply. I did some more work, and here 
are my results.

> It always needs an external html renderer, and on linux this will always be
> something gecko-based.

OK, good to know.

> > 2. "If you are running with eclipse 3.2.1 or newer then you can just run
> > eclipse and it will attempt to detect a browser on your system to use."
> >
> > Can you tell my how exactly the detection is done? How come running the
> > binary package manages to discover it, but running from source does not?
> > Where is the code for this detection (I mean, in which plugin). Is it in
> > SWT?

> This code lives in the eclipse launcher executable.  It basically goes:
> - if MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME is already set then do nothing
> - otherwise try to determine a value for MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME by:
>   -> looking for a file like /etc/gre64.conf or /etc/gre.d/gre64.conf, which
> exists on some linux distros to point at an available Gecko
>   -> trying some common installation locations, like
> /usr/lib/[mozilla/firefox/xulrunner] and
> /usr/lib/[mozilla/firefox/xulrunner]-<version> (usr/lib/mozilla-firefox is
> not a directory that gets checked here)

> You can get the source for this from CVS (
> http://www.eclipse.org/swt/cvs.php ) project org.eclipse.equinox.executable.

> If a Browser cannot not be created for some reason when eclipse is first
> started then an alternate intro screen is shown, so you have to be aware of
> which case you're seeing.  The "correct" intro screen is greenish, which
> indicates that a Browser was successfully created; the alternative intro
> screen is white, which indicates the Browser creation failed.

I've found this code and looked at it. You should have told me it was C 
code, I was looking for some Java code at first, so it took me a bit of 
time to find it, but that's ok ;)

It basically works as you explained it. I can make my compiled Eclipse 
browser work by specifying the MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME.

However there is still one thing I don't fully understand. I have a 
xulrunner installation in /usr/lib/xulrunner. This is a place that gets 
scanned. If I set 
MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME="/usr/lib/xulrunner" and load my compiled Eclipse 
everything works. If I don't set this env var, this does not work. The 
renderer is here (eg, the browser gets created), but the links etc don't 
work. Although it should not make a difference since the directory should 
get scanned!

If I use the binary version from Eclipse, things work better: it works out 
of the box because the xulrunner install gets used. Although, another 
strangeness, it should *not*, because the file that gets tested in 
/usr/lib/xulrunner is:

components/libwidget_gtk2.so

and I *don't* have this file on my xulrunner directory. I have it on my 
mozilla-firefox directory though...

Any ideas about this strange behavior?

Jean-Noel